Monthly Archives: October 2004

As promised and threatened, I am officially starting my hiatus at the end of this entry; between now and December 1 the only thing you’ll see here are links to cool music I’ve found online. The one exception to this will be if/when I get my hardback copies of Old Man’s War and the notice it’s been spotted in the stores; I will then of course let you all know so you may commence your purchasing frenzy. But otherwise: All music, all the time.

Please don’t take my absence personally. It’s not you. It’s that I have a book to write in a month. The good news for me is that it’s about science fiction movies, a subject that I certainly should be able to write a book about in a month, given the fact I write science fiction and have been reviewing movies for most of a dozen years. But it’s still just a month to write a lot of words. Best if I protect you all from the insanity (although, of course, I’ll still be writing over at By The Way. See if you can detect the strain and insanity in my entries over there).

In case you’re wondering if I have any final thoughts on the election: No, I don’t. I’ve made my endorsement, and you all know how I’m planning to vote. I’m not going to make a prediction as to who’s going to win because honestly I don’t have a clue; I just know I’m going to do my part to make sure it’s not George W. Bush. I do know I am deeply tired of this election season and I just want it to be over. Just even thinking about it anymore is difficult; my brain is rebelling at the idea of trying to picture the newspaper headlines on Nov. 3.

I will say this: Vote, damn it. All right, I’m officially done with the subject of the 2004 election.

Have a good November, and remember I’ll be putting up music links through the month, so it won’t be entirely devoid of content around here. Come around when you’re in the mood to listen to something. As for writing from me, come back in December. I’ll be here.

* Question for the other online egomaniacs out there: I may be coming late to this particular party, but have you noticed spam domains in your referrer logs? I’ve never had this before, but suddenly my site is being “visited” by “people” coming from domains like “your-illegal-viagra-pharmacy.com” and such. Really, how pathetic is that.

* Ohio’s Republican Party got smacked around yesterday when all of its peremptory challenges to voters got dismissed in Summit County (which is where the city of Akron is), on the basis that those bringing the challenges (four really old folks more or less dragooned as stooges by the local party) did not in fact have any personal reason to believe that those they challenged had, in fact, incorrectly registered to vote. It should be noted, incidentally, that the move to strike the challenges came from the Republican members of the Board of Elections, which I think is a very positive sign.

I am, like most non-corrupt people, against voter fraud, and I don’t think that either party historically has much to be proud about in the annals of vote suppression. But I do think the Ohio GOP’s attempt to carve into the ranks of newly-registered voters signifies something. Not that the Ohio GOP is corrupt — it’s not any more than Ohio’s Democratic party is, I imagine — but that the Ohio GOP realizes that Bush probably can’t win on the number of people who will actually vote for him in the state, compared to the people who will vote for Kerry. Therefore, best to make sure as few people as possible can vote for Kerry. People whose registrations are challenged still get to vote, but they’re given provisional ballots, and which, as I understand it, are counted only after election day. If you think either party is going to let a state get taken away from them on provisional ballots after election day, you’re sweetly naive.

The GOP remembers that Florida was won on 500-some-odd votes, which is why you’re seeing this unsightly scrum for 100 voter challenges in one county, and 70 voter challenges in another county. Every challenged vote counts. I strongly suspect that the large majority of newly-registered voters in Ohio actually exist, but that’s not the point — the point is that every vote shunted to a provisional ballot is a vote that’s not on the election night tally. These are not the tactics of a party confident of victory, or in their candidate.

* Happiness is getting an unexpected mix CD of very good music from a very good friend. Everyone should have such excellent pals (with such excellent musical taste).

* Speaking of music, for the month of November, during which I will be on a writing hiatus here at the Whatever in order to focus on my book, I’ve decided to go the musical route, in which I’ll be posting links to cool (mostly)independent music I find online, on a (week)daily or semi-daily basis, because don’t you deserve some cool music? Sure you do. As a positive statement of intent, here’s something to get you mood: “Moon Boots” by the band Motel Creeps, off their EP Pleasantries in the Parlor. Imagine what Echo and the Bunnymen would sound like if Ian McCullough was actually happy now and then, and you’ll be right on base. It’s excellent. Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

* On the subject of the hiatus, people have suggested that I won’t be able to resist commenting one way or another, come November 3rd. Ha! Just you wait.

Yes, I know, this isn’t a huge surprise to anyone. But let’s just make it official, shall we. I’m John Scalzi, and I approve this message: I will vote for John Kerry on November 2, and I think you should, too.

Allow me to grant, first off, that this is most importantly a vote against George W. Bush, who I believe is the most incompetent president since Harding, and who in any event (and in order to short-circuit the aside-the-pointers who will try to drag the comments down into pointless comparisons of GWB versus Carter and/or Clinton) has done disastrous things with his own present time in power, independent of his place in the grand pantheon of terrible US presidents. I could go into the litany of the various things the Bush administration has gotten horribly, terribly, awfully wrong, both at home and abroad, but I’vealreadydonethatsooftenhere and so many others have done so elsewhere, so for now, I’ll simply assume you know that of which I speak.

However, I do want to address the one “strength” that Bush has, the one that has made otherwise intelligent human beings single-issue Bush voters, and that is the following shibboleth: “George Bush is the only one who understands that we are in a war against the forces of Islamic extremism.” There are two points to make here. The first is that prior to 9/11, the Bush Administration certainly didn’t understand that we were in a war against Islamic extremism; it took 3,000 dead to get them to come around. If the Bush people, who are the very model of orthodox inflexibility when it comes to thought, can be persuaded we are in a battle against terror, I suggest that we can reasonably hold out the possibility that a Kerry administration may likewise be induced to hold that such extremism is still a clear and present danger to our land (as Senator Kerry has himself agreed, in no uncertain terms).

The second is that recognizing that something is so does not mean one is competent to deal with it. The Bush administration has disastrously bungled our international relationships, the response to terror, and the ancillary (and as we’ve learned, entirely unnecessary for the reasons we were provided) War in Iraq. I remind everyone yet again that I was not opposed to going into Iraq, for my own reasons, not those offered by the Bush administration. But the aftermath of that invasion has been so horribly managed — for no reason greater than the incompetence and recalcitrance of the Bush people — that I profoundly regret my personal decision to assent. I never assumed that winning and occupying Iraq would be easy, but I never imagined that the Bush people would so stubbornly work to make it harder.

9/11 and Iraq have also shown the Bush administration’s profound lack of interest in the constitutional security of United States citizens against the predations of their own government; time and again, this administration has shown it does not want to govern, it wants to rule. How else to explain the unnecessary secrets, countless lies, bland assurances of undisclosed evidence to justify the terrible bruising this administration has administered to its constituents’ constitutional rights? But more than that, this is an administration who by its actions has shown time and again that it believes truth is fungible — and not only that, but an enemy to its power (which is, ironically, true enough).

I don’t want an administration that believes that reality is negotiable — and even less than that, that reality is predicated on the consistently incorrect “gut” of the President of the United States, and anyone who opposes the presidential intestine subject to ground-scorching attack. This administration is the closest the United States has ever come to installing a cult of personality in the White House, in which the president is right because he’s the president. George W. Bush is the end sum of the reductive argument that began when Ronald Reagan declared that “facts are stupid things.”

This is why I am fundamentally agog whenever anyone delivers the “George Bush keeps us safe” bit. He did not even attempt to keep us safe prior to 9/11 from the people who eventually attacked us. He’s assaulted the Constitution of the United States to keep us “safe” since then. He’s poured vast amounts of money into a Homeland Security bureaucracy whose most obvious contribution to our security is a color-coding system which seemingly goes into alert whenever Bush gets bad political news, and he’s expended billions of dollars and the lives of over 1000 American troops in a war that has nothing to do with the terrorists who attacked us and only increased the worldwide hostility Americans face, politically and personally. Yes, I believe George Bush knows Americans need to be safe. But George Bush is just about the very last person I trust to do that job. He’s done a far better job attacking the Americans who criticize him than he’s done attacking the people who killed so many of us.

An utter failure in domestic policy, an antagonizer of nations abroad, and a man whose presidential actions show very little but contempt for the wide majority of Americans whom he was selected to lead. George W. Bush should never have been president at all. So not only is he not worth voting for, he is very much actively worth voting against.

Which brings us, at last, to John Kerry. John Kerry was not my first choice for President (Wesley Clarke was), but reading after his positions and reading interviews of the man and learning more about him, I think he’s a good choice, both for me personally, and for the nation. His political opponents have been attempting to tar him with the “liberal” brush, but it seems like that brush is down to its very last camel hair. And even if he were a liberal, so what? Given Bush’s track record as a “compassionate conservative,” being “liberal” is hardly the worst thing one can be.

Indeed, if the 2004 election does anything beneficial to the national political discourse, it will be election which reminds lower-income white people (and particularly the men) that just because people like George Bush say they’re Christian and like country music and prattle on about “traditional values,” it doesn’t actually mean they’re on your side. In any event, speaking as someone who lives in a town that has almost as many flags with car numbers on them as American flags, and also a surprisingly large number of Kerry/Edwards signs in front lawns, there’s only so long you can bark-strip a NASCAR fan before he simply doesn’t care that you love Jesus and don’t want the queers to jointly file their taxes, and actually votes in his economic self-interest. And there will be much rejoicing on that day, hallelujah, amen.

The other reason Kerry’s supposed “liberal” taint won’t matter is that the Congress will remain in Republican hands. The Senate is on the bubble for a razor-thin Democratic majority, but it will likely remain with a razor-thin Republican majority, and all the huffing and puffing in the world won’t make the House go Democratic. We’ll have a divided government, and for the average American, that’s the best sort of government there is, since it means that very few laws will pass that don’t have bipartisan support (i.e., they’re not nutbag tax cuts or tax increases). It also means that the next judge seated on the Supreme Court likely won’t be either a right-wing or left-wing whack-job, but rather someone whose views are acceptable most of the way around. I like divided governments; it’s that whole “checks and balances” thing. You know, that which the Founding Fathers raved so much about.

I’m happy with a divided government because fact of the matter is, by and large, I am a moderate, which is to say, I’m politically all over the board. I’m generally socially liberal, since I think people should generally be left alone to do what they want to do as long as they’re not actively hurting and/or bothering me or anyone else, and I’m generally militarily and fiscally conservative, because I believe in paying now instead of paying later, and that the parent who foists his debts on his children is simply a bad parent, and I believe that speaking softly and carrying a big stick is actually an excellent military position.

I am not going to get what I want politically out of George Bush: He’s too far into the pocket of business and the sort of people who believe, contrary to evidence in the Bible, that Jesus wants his followers to hate people who are not like them. Also, a Republican-led Congress isn’t going to stop Bush from doing what he wants, because why would it want to do that? They’re all on the same team. But I am likely to get what I want out of Kerry. His policies are thoughtful and generally in line with my own, and those that aren’t are likely to be tempered by the Republicans in Congress.

With the exception of the subject of same-sex marriage (about which I am admittedly playing wide left), I tend to think most people are like me: Socially mellow, fiscally concerned and militarily inclined to be able to righteously kick ass, but only if absolutely necessary. These people are best represented by a Kerry presidency. Strictly as a matter of realpolitik, voting for Kerry is a smart and sane vote. And as a bonus, all those international folk who our administration swaggeringly disdains at the moment will be more inclined to help us dig ourselves out of the charnel pit we’ve excavated in Iraq, and I’m all for that. I want our boys and girls back home and/or working on the terrorists, not asking themselves what the hell they’re doing in Iraq and why the people there increasingly want them dead.

Here’s the other thing about Kerry that appeals to me: He seems reasonable — which is to say grounded in reality. I think Kerry is capable of listening to his gut, but I also suspect he knows that it’s the brain that is the actual seat of judgment. I think he will understand that whatever slim majority that carries him into office means that he will have to work with people who do not share his views, not contemptuously ignore them and pursue an agenda that walls off the benefits America provides to a select few who already have so much. I don’t expect he intends to rule. I expect he intends to lead. The difference is not subtle; to rule you need to keep down those who oppose you. To lead, you have to convince them to follow where you go. We’ve lived four years under would-be rulers. Four years is enough.

I don’t expect Kerry to be perfect. I don’t expect to agree with his policies or proposals all the time. I don’t imagine the Clausewitz-like, “nuke the opposition ’til they glow” tenor of American politics will suddenly change overnight. On the other hand, I do expect I will agree with Kerry some of the time, I would be happy if the American politics actually became more pragmatic and focused on the needs of the constituents, and I expect Kerry knows neither he nor his gut are infallible. All of these would be vastly preferable to what we’ll get over the next four years if Bush stays in office.

Here’s Athena again, modeling this year’s model of Book of the Dumb: Book of the Dumb 2, or as I like to call it: Book of the Dumb 2: The Quickening. It’s 330 pages of quality stupidity, and as a bonus it actually looks quite a bit nicer than the original, thanks to a slightly revised cover design and and substantially overhauled inside design which makes it a lot easier to read and enjoy. I’m very pleased about both; I wasn’t a huge fan of the first BotD cover, although I allowed that the Uncle John people knew their business better than I did. Since the book sold very well, that was the correct assumption on my part. However, the new cover refers back to the old cover while at the same time opening up the design, so everyone’s happy.

As a extra bonus, the content’s good, too. Although I did find one very amusing typo, in the acknowledgments: I thanked Fark.com and mentioned Fark proprietor Drew Curtis by name, and the typo has him as Draw Curtis. I think there’s some deep, rich, creamy irony there, and indeed I can see the Fark headline now: “Book of the Dumb Author Thanks Drew in Book, Spells Name ‘D-r-a-w.’ Asshat spelled ‘A-S-S-H-A-T’.” I’d be more upset if it actually weren’t kind of funny, and from what little I know for Mr. Curtis, he doesn’t seem the kind to get that upset about it. Anyway, I’m sure they’ll fix it in the second printing. And since that’s the only typo I’ve come across so far, we’ve gotten off pretty lightly.

I’ve gotten my personal copies slightly ahead of the book appearing in the stores but it’s available for pre-order on Amazon and other online book sites. And it’ll be in bookstores probably in the next couple of weeks. I will of course let you know when it’s officially on the market.

I’m really excited about this book getting out there — I talk about Old Man’s War more, because it’ll be my first novel, but like most authors I feel about my books pretty much like parents feel about their kids; it’s hard to pick favorites (at least in public). But I have a lot of fun writing the Books of the Dumb, and it’s the sort of book I can see writing for a while. If they ask me to do Book of the Dumb 3 (or, as I like to call it: Book of the Dumb 3: The Final Outrage), I’ll be there. Book of the Dumb 4? Sure. BotD 5? Why not. Athena needs college, and I like being published, and apparently, the world needs books about dumb people doing dumb things. As I said before: Everybody wins.

Because, by God, it’s my Web site. If you click here, you’ll see Athena sing the informative and emphatic “Planet Song,” with music and lyrics by Athena Scalzi. And if that hasn’t caused you to scurry away screaming, indulge in the gripping narrative tone poem “I Broke My Knee,” another original work, which recounts Athena breaking said knee. Actually, she just scraped it, but what good is art, if not to exaggerate to great effect? I mean, Grendel was probably a wounded bear or something. You know what I’m talking about.

Bear in mind that both of these songs are meant primarily for grandmotherly consumption (as well as the consumption of other family), so you can be entirely excused if you’re less than overwhelmed by Athena’s musical and lyrical gifts. On the other hand, let’s roll you back to five years old and see how you do. Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Hey, look at that: James Lileks has got a new book out: Interior Desecrations: Hideous Homes from the Horrible ’70s. It’s a follow-up to his Gallery of Regrettable Food, except this time, instead of mocking 50s food, he’s mocking 70s interior decorating. And rightly so, I’d say.

James and I go back a ways, to the time when I was a humor editor at AOL and I called him to beg him to write a weekly column for me, and he did (thus marking the first and probably last time that he and Ted Rall worked for the same editor). He helped make me look good; therefore I’m inclined to recommend him to others. I haven’t seen the book yet, but I’ve seen the dry runs off of Lileks.com, and they’re the patented Lileks midwestern-hipster snark, so I can’t imagine this one not being damn funny. I’ll be picking it up the next trip to the bookstore.

As long as I’m making a tangential reference to Ted Rall, I should also note that he has a new book out as well: Generalissimo El Busho: Essays and Cartoons on the Bush Years. Sadly for me, this book meant that Ted was on a book tour while I was in New York, so our paths did not cross in Gotham. But I allow that shilling his book may have been moderately more important than seeing me at the moment. This is actually Ted’s second book of the year; his previous one, Wake Up, You’re Liberal!: How We Can Take America Back from the Right makes the argument that most conservatives are actually closer to liberals than they suspect, in terms of values, but that they’ve been more or less brainwashed to see an “us vs. them” worldview versus the libs. I imagine hearing this from Ted Rall would be enough to make conservatives explode in rage, which is of course only proving his point. Anyway, it’s a fascinating book, and not just because of my cameo appearance on page 53 (in which Ted references my theory of the “original sin” of both the Republicans and the Democrats, which you can see via Amazon here).

I’m back. Over the last few days Krissy and I were in New York City, convincing skeptical friends that Krissy was not actually mythical and does indeed exist (the rumor of the mythical Krissy having sprung up through the fact that I’ve gone to two Worldcons solo and yet spoke of this mysterious offstage wife). Suffice to say that they are all suitably convinced. During our stay in NYC, we stayed at the palatial apartment of Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier, and very much enjoyed their hospitality; we of course extended an invitation to this marvelous couple to visit us in the rustic splendor of rural Ohio and then we all had a nice long giggle at the idea of the two of them tromping through the neighboring cornfields. Nevertheless, the offer still stands.

Aside from enjoying the pleasure of Scott and Justine’s company, we also visited other friends, saw the Blue Man Group (which was very touristy, but on the other hand was also a lot of fun, and hell, we were tourists), and swung by Tor for lunch with the Nielsen Haydens, and to pick up an Advance Readers’ Copy of Old Man’s War. I was very pleased the NHs made the time, as they were busy jamming through work prior to rocketing off to Arizona, and having lunch conversation with the two of them is always lots of fun.

Incidentally, PNH tells me that in fact Old Man’s War will be printed and on pallets by mid-November, which means it will almost certainly be in bookstores in time for the holidays. So please feel free to place it back on your lists of things to buy for Christmas/Hanukkah/Winter Solstice. Also, I see that OMW is ranked in the 34,000s on the Amazon rankings at the moment, so to the six of you who have already pre-ordered the book: Bless you, my friends.

Having a weekend in New York City to relax and enjoy the company of friends was a good thing, as I mentioned over at By The Way, because November is going to be hellacious. Here’s the deal: Because of various editorial reasons which need not be discussed here, I’ll be writing pretty much the entire Rough Guide to Science Fiction Film in November. That’s about 80,000 words. So all you people who are thinking of doing the National Novel Writing Month thingie in November: I’ve so got you beat. I’ll be using the rest of October to clear the decks of other projects and to watch lots and lots of science fiction movies; come November 1, I submerge into the inky depths and you won’t see much of me until December 1, when either the book will be off to the editors, or I will be off to intensive care for my ulcers.

What this means is that it is now official: I will be taking a hiatus from the Whatever through the entire month of November. I haven’t yet decided whether I will simply put up a “Come Back December 1″ entry or if I will post “re-runs” of popular previous whatevers. Alternately, I may post a daily (or semi-daily) link to some music I’ve found online, ala the late, lamented IndieCrit, and leave the comment thread open for your thoughts on the music. If you have a preference please let me know.

Whatever I do, I guarantee it will not involve more than five minutes of my time on a daily basis, because I’ve got a couple thousand words to write daily in a book. My AOL Journal By The Way will of course be running more or less as usual, since I get paid for that. Yes, I know many of you would prefer I do the Whatever over By the Way. But one pays bills and the other doesn’t. You can’t give the bank an excuse to take your home.

The good news is that December looks rather a bit more relaxed. If I can get through the next five weeks, It’ll be smooth sailing until 2005. And I wouldn’t mind a month off.

First off, I’m appalled that it’s the 21st of October already. That thing they say about time moving faster as you get older is hellaciously true. This is very bad news when you have a book deadline.

Second off, I’m going to be AFK, at least as regards the Whatever, through Monday. Places to go, things to do, other writing to catch up on. Also, the prediction earlier this week that I would be taking a Whatever hiatus in November is looking more and more like a go. Like, a 75% chance of hiatus. Plan your reading substitutes now.

That’s all I got. Please, consider this an invitation to make this an open thread, to talk amongst yourselves. See you on Monday.

Athena and I just got home from me picking her up from school when the phone rang; Athena picked it up and then handed to me with a puzzled look on her face. It was a recorded political message. I didn’t bother to hear who it was from; I just hung it up. Athena wanted to know what it was about.

“There’s an election this year, and people want to tell me how to vote,” I said.

“Oh,” Athena said. “You know, I want Kerry to win.”

“Oh, really?” I said. “And why is that?”

“Because he has a ‘c’ in his name, and so do I,” Athena said. (she’s referring to the “c” in her last name, incidentally).

“Well, okay,” I said. “But you know, Kerry spells his name with a ‘k,’ not a ‘c.'”

Athena looked stunned for a minute and then thought furiously. “Well, there’s no ‘b’ in my name, so I don’t care,” she said. “I still want Kerry to win.” Clearly the pledges of allegiance go to the closest phonemic candidate.

This is a cute exchange no matter what, but here’s the thing: Neither Krissy or I talk politics to Athena or around Athena, and I know she doesn’t know how I’m going to vote because I haven’t told her (I just checked to make sure she didn’t know). So I asked her how she knew who was running for president.

“I read it in the newspaper,” she said.

Athena Scalzi in ’36, ladies and gentlemen. Get on the bandwagon now, while there’s still time.

Clearly, I’m not a George Bush fan, and I’ll be voting against him come November 2. But I’ve been asked — and not unreasonably so — just how bad would another four years of Bush be for me? The answer: Honestly? Not bad at all.

Why? Well, simply put: On paper, at least, I (and my family) are exactly the sort of people the Bushies assume everyone is (or should be): White, married, educated, well-off property owners with adequate health insurance and no reason to rely on the government for any direct need. Almost none of their policies impact this demographic in a negative way — or if they do, it’s so negligible as not to matter in a practical sense.

White, married, educated, well-off, insured property owners (henceforth abbreviated to WMEWIPOs — pronounceed “wimmie-wipos”) don’t need to worry about the tax cuts; they skew to us anyway, and when the bill comes due, as they will in my daughter’s generation if not sooner, we’ll be insulated by our investments. WMEWIPOs don’t need to worry about underfunding of schools because we can afford to educate our kids on our own dime if we need to. WMEWIPOs don’t worry about Roe v. Wade being overturned, because if it comes to that, we can easily make a trip to Massachusetts, California or Canada. WMEWIPOs don’t worry about military shortages because none of our kids are in the military, and even if there’s a draft we can usually manage to keep our kids out of harm’s way. WMEWIPOs don’t have to worry about same-sex marriages or civil unions, because we’ve already got the rights others are hoping to get.

Why do I suspect another 4 years of Dubya will leave me mostly unscathed? Well, among other things, the first four years of Dubya left me mostly unscathed. The most I’ve been personally inconvenienced by the policies of George W. Bush was the time an officious TSA schmuck wouldn’t let us carry a collapsed beach umbrella onto a plane as a carry-on because it was sealed in plastic. So I took it back to the car at the airport and we bought another umbrella at the beach. That’s it.

Now, this is not to say that I can’t tell you of people, even within my own extended family, who have been negatively affected by Dubya’s policies; I certainly can, and it’s certain they will be additionally negatively affected. But they’re not me, or members of my immediate family (i.e., Krissy, Athena and the pets). We’re fine. And barring a sudden, random change in fortunes, we will continue to be fine through 2008.

So, no, having another four years of Dubya in office won’t be the end of my world; indeed, given Dubya’s executive inclinations, it’s likely another four years would benefit me. Why deny it? However, and this is an important thing, one of the things about being a grownup is looking beyond one’s personal and immediate benefits (or lack of negatives). I tend to look at the overall health of the nation when I vote for president, and I think in both the long and short term, we’d be better without another four years of Bush. Yes, Bush isn’t bad for me. But I think a president should do more than look out for me, or people who, on paper at least, are just like me and mine. Not every American is a Wimmie-wipo. All Americans, however, deserve to be served by their president.

* It took two weeks for the comment spammers to figure out that I’d yanked all the previous Whatever entries, and now they’re back to annoy me again. Fortunately, this newer version of Movable Type makes it very simple to yank the comment spam out by the roots. I got rid of 25 comment spams this morning in about three minutes, and it would have taken me about three times longer on my earlier install. So good going, Movable Type!

Since I’m finding it not terribly onerous to yank out comment spam, I’ve decided not to institute any comment policies that require people to register. I want people to be able to comment at the drop of a hat, and I accept dealing with some comment spam as part of the “cost” of doing that.

* The Barnes & Noble Web site has an actual “street date” for Old Man’s War: January 28, 2005. I’ve sent an e-mail to Tor to ask about this, but since I’ve been told that generally a book is in the stores a few weeks before the official date, it seems unlikely to me that the book will be around for most of December and the holiday season, so all of y’all who were thinking the book would make a perfect Christmas/Hanukkah/Winter Solstice gift may find yourselves disappointed. As I said, I’ll wait until I hear from Tor to confirm this, but that’s my assumption. Of course, I hope you’ll buy it anyway. It’ll be just right for Valentine’s Day.

Silver lining, however: Book of the Dumb 2 will ready for the holidays — it’s supposed to be out this month, in fact. So it doesn’t have to be an entirely Scalzi-free holiday season. I also note that frequent Whatever visitor Elizabeth Bear’s Hammeredhas an official release date of 12/28, which again suggests it should be available for seasonal enjoyment. Why not check that out — here’s a chapter excerpt.

* Back to the Book of the Dumb series, I note that the first Book of the Dumb has been doing surprisingly resilient business, at least on Amazon: It’s current Amazon ranking is 6,436, which is not too far off the peak I saw, shortly after it was released, of the mid-2000s. From what the publishers tell me, the book has sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 copies, which is good for me for two reasons — first, I get a sales bonus for that, and second, I think by some quasi-official metric the book publishers use, Book of the Dumb now qualifies as a “bestseller.” So you may now refer to me as “bestselling author John Scalzi.” Or, alternately “pathetically deluded author John Scalzi.” Either works.

Mind you, it’s not as if BotD showed up on any bestseller lists, and I doubt BotD2 will, either — a ton of the sales of these books go through places like Sam’s Club, which I don’t expect spends a lot of time reporting data to the New York Times bestseller list editors. On the other hand, why would I care? The book has sold tens of thousands of copies, there’s another book on the way which (one hopes) will sell as well, and if everything goes swimmingly, I can write more of these fun and silly books. Who can complain?

I am pleased to see that it’s selling so well after a year out, however. It bodes well for the longevity of the series. Also, if the book sells another 60,000 copies by October 2007, I get another sales bonus. Go, Book of the Dumb! Go!

* As a procedural note, it’s becoming more and more likely that I may take a hiatus from the Whatever in November. The reason for this is tied up in the writing of The Rough Guide to Science Fiction Film, which may require some rather intensive attention next month for various reasons which rather thankfully have little to do with me as a proximate cause, but which nevertheless will require my mostly-undivided attention. So, if you don’t hear from me much in November, that’ll be why.

* I’m also behind on getting up the non-Whatever portions of Scalzi.com. Sorry. I wish I had a good excuse. Actually, I wish I had an unpaid intern to slap it all up. Either would work.

My pal Joe Rybicki, aka the mastermind behind quality geek-core band Johnny High Ground, has finally gotten his Johnny High Ground Web site in order, and as may be expected, it’s a rockin’ good time, with music downloads and links to the release of the JHG compilation Early Output: 1999-2002, which piles up the music Joe put together in those years in that easy-to-carry recording technology the guys in the tech department call a “Compact Disc.” Isn’t technology groovy.

Wanna hear it first? You can stream the tracks on the collection on Joe’s music page, which also features the timely political song “Trigger-Happy Texan” (also on the CD) for download. Joe says of “Texan”: “Please — download a copy, share it with your friends, and pray with me that it will be rendered utterly obsolete in three weeks.”

I would note that aside from this one track, even potential Bush voters should fully enjoy JHG’s musical output, and the CD Joe’s selling, so even if you’re gettin’ all “red state” come Nov. 2, check out Joe’s music anyway. And if you are feeling “blue state,” you’ll definitely want to rip, burn and share, since not only is it a protest song, it’s a protest song that is the very opposite of “suck.” Check it for yourself and see what I mean.

I got into one of those moods to make something in the kitchen yesterday — a rare mood, for which Krissy is thankful, since when I get in the mood to make something in the kitchen, usually the kitchen explodes toward entropy in fairly short order. But what can I say, I had a hankering for chili. I told Krissy I was going to make dinner, and after the near imperceptible emotional war on her face — the “how nice, he’s making dinner so I don’t have to” expression and the “please God let my kitchen survive this” expression going mano a mano for about 15 milliseconds — she said that would be fine. Off I went to the grocery store.

3. One small package of Orzo or other small pasta (you want no more than a cup)

4. One pound italian sausage — not ground beef. The sausage should be ground but not in sausage casings.

5. One pound thick-sliced peppered bacon.

6. One regular-sized can of chili beans.

7. One regular-sized can of starter chili sauce (I used the Tabasco brand one)

8. 3-4 cans of basic canned chili, two with beans, two without. You ask, why bother with these cans of chili? Well, if you want to just build out your chili starting from beans and tomato paste, go right ahead. But the reason I do it this way is that even when I’m ambitious, I’m lazy. If there’s a canned chili you find marginally acceptable, why not use it as a base?

All right. First you dump the canned chili, the starter chili sauce and the beans into a bag-ass pot and you let it simmer. You chop up the onions and tomatoes. The tomatoes go directly into the chili. The onion you sauté first in olive oil (this keeps you from having onion breath so insanely powerful that you melt your pets’ hair), adding a very small dash of garlic powder. Once they are lightly cooked, in they go into the chili.

Then you fry up the italian sausage, and make sure that you don’t get any clumps that are too large. Once it’s fully cooked, put it into the chili. Chop up the bacon into smallish chunks and fry up in two batches. I like my bacon fully cooked but not crumbly crisp, but, you know, do what you want. Drain the fat but don’t be obsessive about draining every last drop; dump into the chili.

Lastly, add in the orzo and mix throughly. Let the chili continue to simmer for the suggested cooking time of the Orzo. Now, eat. It serves, God, at least eight. Garnish each bowl with cheese, sour cream and pepper/peppers to taste.

This chili is not particularly hot, since I’m not a huge fan of chili that tries to assassinate your tongue on it’s way toward the stomach, but if you are then I suppose adding in the chilies of your choice would not be a bad thing at all. For me, this chili has two things going for it: One, it’s got a lot of savory meat (the Italian sausage and peppered bacon plus the base “meat” from the canned chili), and two, it’s a really thick chili — the orzo really helps with that. Chili can have either the consistency of a soup or a stew, but I have a hard time with soup-like chilis. I think a good chili needs to have a substantial portion of the chili stick on a spoon when you turn the spoon upside down. Otherwise, you’re just doing it wrong.

I don’t know if this recipe qualifies as “true” chili, or just a weird-random chili-like stew. But one, ask me if I care, and two, whatever it is, it’s good eatin’.

Best of all, I did not destroy the kitchen making it. Score one point for me.

WASHINGTON – In March 2003, days before the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, American war planners and intelligence officials met at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina to review the Bush administration’s plans to oust Saddam Hussein and implant democracy in Iraq.

Near the end of his presentation, an Army lieutenant colonel who was giving a briefing showed a slide describing the Pentagon’s plans for rebuilding Iraq after the war, known in the planners’ parlance as Phase 4-C. He was uncomfortable with his material – and for good reason.

The slide said: “To Be Provided.”

A Knight Ridder review of the administration’s Iraq policy and decisions has found that it invaded Iraq without a comprehensive plan in place to secure and rebuild the country. The administration also failed to provide some 100,000 additional U.S. troops that American military commanders originally wanted to help restore order and reconstruct a country shattered by war, a brutal dictatorship and economic sanctions.

In fact, some senior Pentagon officials had thought they could bring most American soldiers home from Iraq by September 2003. Instead, more than a year later, 138,000 U.S. troops are still fighting terrorists who slip easily across Iraq’s long borders, diehards from the old regime and Iraqis angered by their country’s widespread crime and unemployment and America’s sometimes heavy boots.

“We didn’t go in with a plan. We went in with a theory,” said a veteran State Department officer who was directly involved in Iraq policy.

The whole report is, in a word, heartbreaking. And it shows how this administration betrayed the military which performed so brilliantly during the invasion of Iraq by not having its back with a plan for the peace. Please do pass it along to any Bush supporter you know who clings to the idea that this adminstration has the slightest clue what it’s doing in Iraq. It really doesn’t. And as this report shows, it never really did. It hardly even bothered.

Our military people deserve better. The people in Iraq deserve better. We deserve better.

Got an e-mail today, one of those “forward to all your friends!” ones, that asked “How Would Jesus Vote?” and suggested that Jesus would vote for John Kerry. This will no doubt come as a vast surprise to many Bush supporters, who will likely be shocked, offended and personally aggrieved at the idea that Jesus might vote for a pro-choice pinko senator from Taxachusetts; that doesn’t seem like Him at all. Although why they would think he would He would vote for Bush, who is currently and relentlessly screwing the poor for the benefit of the rich, is a question that remains unasked and unanswered. No one believes Jesus would vote for Nader; that’s just sick.

I wonder why people are asking How Would Jesus Vote? at all. I am no more privy to the Mind of God than the next guy — and well aware of the fact, which is why I’m officially an agnostic — but based on what I know of the guy, I don’t suspect he’d vote for anyone. Jesus is not the voting type, boys and girls. Jesus, you’ll recall, was concerned with another Kingdom entirely, and I suspect that One who passed over the worldly temptations of the Devil while in the desert wouldn’t spend a whole lot of time worrying about how to cast His worldly vote. Also, when you die for everyone’s sins, picking sides in a political scrap seems sort of aside the point. I think it seems rather unlikely that Jesus would say “I died for the sins of the world, but I especially died for the sins of those who vote Bush/Cheney on November 2.” We are all equally sinners, and in the eyes of the Lord, none of us more equal than the others.

Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.

For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Asking How Jesus Would Vote is a foolish question; however, asking how one should vote as a Christian is not. Christians are human beings; they are citizens of a country (for the purposes of this entry, I’m assuming of the United States), and they are manifestly enjoined to be concerned about their neighbors, which one can easily mean to suggest in a wider sense that one should be actively politically involved. Romans 13 earlier suggests that one should submit to governing authorities: Here in the US, that means us, the voters. The Constitution of the United States apportions power in various ways, but ultimately and by design power in the US devolves to individual voters, who decide who is to represent us in our government. One could very easily say it is a Christian duty to vote.

And for whom should a Christian vote? Well, if one is voting exclusively as a Christian, it would seem that one would vote for the candidate who best exemplifies the Christian ideal of loving one’s neighbor as one’s self. Which candidate might that be? Well, I have my own personal opinion on that, but I’m not a Christian, nor do I vote based directly on Christian philosophy.

But even I were and I did, there’s no assurance that my interpretation of the political ramifications of “Love your neighbor as yourself” is going to jibe with anyone else’s. I strongly suspect that many good and conscientious Christians will vote for Kerry; I suspect many good and conscientious Christians will vote for Bush. If they genuinely believe that the candidate for whom they have voted best exemplifies the loving standard of neighborly care set forth by Jesus, then I submit to the extent they vote based on their faith, they have voted well.

I would submit, however, that this sort of belief can only come through genuine individual decision-making. I’ve got several theological bones to pick with most born-again folks in the US, but one thing I think they get right is that one must affirm one’s faith — one must go through the trial of crisis and decision and make the conscious decision to be born again into the grace of the Lord. This requires an individual and personal choice, which implies a great deal of thought (Catholics, who are baptised early, usually go through a confirmation process later. Some idea, different theological franchise).

In the best of all worlds, every Christian will expend the same effort (in kind, if not degree) in examining his or her vote for the leader of the United States as he or she hopefully expended in accepting Jesus as a savior. I submit the Christian who votes for one candidate or another because that’s who they’ve been told to vote for by their family, friends or religious leaders is not only doing themselves a disservice, they are not voting in a truly Christian manner. Jesus wouldn’t vote, but I’m pretty sure He’d want you to really think about yours. You walk into the Kingdom of Heaven with your eyes open; you should be walking into the polling booth the same way.

Well, I’m not going to try to defend the quiz on methodology; it clearly has a bias (mine) and I’m clearly trying to provoke. If I wanted to write a legitimate survey, I certainly wouldn’t toss it off in an hour on my Web site. I think the questions are not without merit, but the point for me — aside from the general ventilation of my brain it affords — is to ask whether people are voting for Bush by reflex or voting for because they’ve actually thought through their reasons for voting for him. There’s no real point being nice when you ask someone that; you might as well make them defensive about it and thereby in a mood to justify themselves (it worked on Cornett, in any event). One could just as easily create a similar quiz for Kerry voters, although that one would not be me, because I have no interest in doing so. Point is — Voting by reflex, bad. Voting from thought, good.

Cornett writes:

Please note that I understand Needham will not accept my answers as honest or true, nor will Scalzi, because they don’t want answers – they want a stupid stick to beat me with.

I don’t speak for John Needham, but personally I’m thrilled she tried to answer them honestly as possible; why wouldn’t I be? Just because I think nearly all people voting for Bush are stupid, ignorant or hypocritical doesn’t mean I can’t be wrong. Really, I’m getting sick of having to remind people constantly that I don’t think my opinion is a direct analogue to reality. People clearly need a refresher course on what the word “opinion” means.

Now, as it happens, I think some of Corbett’s rationales are a tad slapdash; it’s easy to pronounce things like “the Clinton economy was a false bubble of prosperity” and hope people don’t pay attention to the fact Bush’s tax policies went far beyond economic stimulus and became tantamount to a fire sale on my kid’s fiscal future for the benefit of the really really rich. And I think she’s living in some strange parallel universe when she says “The primary initiative was accomplished in Afghanistan before the Iraq war.” Nor am I any less convinced Bush and his administration is not in fact, monstrously incompetent, and a vote for Bush is a thumbs-up on letting the dim rule the roost.

But on the other hand, why don’t you go over and check her answers to see if she’s convinced you she’s not ignorant, stupid or hypocritical for supporting Bush. Who knows? She may, and bully for her if she does. I’d rather have you hear from someone who thinks she has good reasons for voting for Bush than just listening to me confirm yet again what you already know I think about the man. Yes, I think Bush is incompetent, and those who vote for him crazy enablers. But I don’t want you to take my word for it. I’d rather have you think for yourself.

I don’t think much of it, and reading it I think less of Schwenk than I did before. Schwenk gripes about how horrible this whole ordeal has been for him and his family and about how awfully he’s been abused by the Times when it published his name and the comment. But other than agreeing that what he wrote (“I hope your kid gets his head blown off in a Republican war”) was “shocking and uncivil,” I don’t see Schwenk actually being sorry for what he wrote.

Oh, true enough, he regrets it, for various reasons: He’s gotten a number of harassing phone calls, he’s been exposed to national ridicule, and now anytime anyone Googles him, they’re going to see his brief spike into national prominence, and for a not very nice reason. But as Schwenk formulates it, it’s all about what’s being done to him, and nothing about the outrageous comment which provoked the response.

For example, look how Schwenk formulates the Google complaint:

What won’t go away for years, if ever, are the results of the Google search of my name every prospective employer, professional colleague, new friend or potential spouse is likely to conduct in the future. When you search my name now, you learn right away that the Public Editor of the New York Times called me a coward and a despicable person incapable of consideration of others. As Mr. Nagourney well knows, Google is brutal and unforgiving. It forgets nothing. And everybody uses it. And when people see in their search results that it is the esteemed New York Times that has branded me an inconsiderate coward, they are, ironically, likely to believe it to be true without any second thought.

What Schwenk conveniently glosses over here is that the Google-accessible chunk of text in which he is called a coward will also include Mr. Schwenk’s actual quote. I suggest that future Googlers of Mr. Schwenk will be rather more convinced that he is a coward because he wished for the death of someone’s child from the safe remove of 2,200 miles and e-mail delivery than the fact that Daniel Okrent, for better or worse, called him on the fact.

Yes, yes, I know, Schwenk says that it’s out of context. But let me ask, and not for the first time: In what context can hoping someone’s child gets his head blown off in a war be seen as anything other than cruel and monstrous? I’m racking by brain for that sort of redeeming context, and you know, I’m coming up with squat.

I’d also like to draw attention to this bit from Mr. Schwenk’s letter:

In sending my angry e-mail to Mr. Nagourney, I never intended to cause him harm, and did not cause him harm.

Simply and baldly put: Steve Schwenk is a liar. Mr. Schwenk is apparently a parent, since he details how his children have been frightened by the aftermath of his outing in the Times. I find it utterly inconceivable that a parent — particularly one who is now trotting out his own children to bolster his claims of persecution — can wish another parent’s child dead without recognizing the extreme power of that statement. This isn’t your usual, garden variety “you’re an asshole” sort of invective. It’s the sort of language you use when you want to hit someone hard in their soft spots. You don’t say something like that about someone’s kid as part of a general suite of heated conversation. No, placing an image of a child’s death in the mind of a parent takes malice aforethought.

Within the scope of Schwenk’s ability to hurt Mr. Nagourney, the reporter whose child for whom he hoped for death, he went out of his way to do so. Some of the people jumping to Schwenk’s defense (none here, thank God), have suggested that this kind of comment is “a mildly heated email to a Times reporter.” Well, I call “bullshit” on that, and on Mr. Schwenk. You don’t wish someone’s kid gets their head blown off and then try to say that you weren’t trying to hurt them. If Schwenk is not a liar, and he genuinely didn’t know hoping for Nagourney’s kid to die might not come back to haunt him, then he is so unfathomably stupid as to beggar description. But as I said, since he’s canny enough to trot out his own kids to make his case, I don’t think Schwenk can claim stupidity.

Let me close by pledging that, henceforth, I shall write all of my e-mails as though they will be published in the New York Times. I shall write them with the care, consideration and respect for civil discourse that one would expect from the public editor of the nation’s leading newspaper. I will write them as though I am writing a respected column that will be read by people around the world, and that will be captured in Google forever. My parting request to you, Mr. Okrent, should your choose not to do the honorable thing and resign, is that you pledge to never again write a column for the New York Times as though you are writing a private, angry and hostile e-mail to an audience of one.

In other words, “I’ll never write another e-mail wishing another parent’s kid dead because I don’t want to be embarrassed again.” Not “I’ll never write another e-mail wishing another parent’s kid dead because it’s a horrible thing to do, and I was wrong for doing it.”

What a schmuck.

Look, if I were Adam Nagourney, I would have dropped Schwenk’s e-mail into the trash like it deserved to be trashed. If I were Daniel Okrent, I wouldn’t have published Schwenk’s name. If I were Okrent’s editor, I would have strongly suggested he not put Schwenk’s name in the article. Outing Schwenk is far from the New York Times’ greatest moment. Schwenk should have been ignored, not held up for ridicule.

Having said that, in light of Schwenk’s self-pitying refusal to acknowledge his sentiment was wrong, I again discover I have not a thimbleful of sympathy for him for the predicament in which he finds himself. It’s nice he regrets sending that e-mailed sentiment to Mr. Nagourney. Would that he regretted it not for what airing the sentiment is doing to him, but for what sending the sentiment says about his soul.

Here’s what I hope for Mr. Schwenk’s children: That they grow up bright and beautiful and happy, and so very far away from the sort of death their father wished upon the child of another parent.

My new DSL modem has provided me the first true low-ping environment I’ve had since I left the warm confines of the AOL LAN, lo those many years ago. So I cranked up my Unreal Tournament 2004, went looking for some local servers, and jumped into a deathmatch to see if I still had my 1337 deathmatch 5ki11z5, yo.

I don’t. I got my ass handed to me over and over and over again; it’s a reminder that people are smarter than bots and are not easily tricked by a crafty double jump or two.

Clearly, I need to spend more time re-establishing my 5ki11z5. If I can do without having Krissy murder me, so much the better.

Also: The DSL is, like, sooooo much better than the satellite modem. There’s just no comparison. And it’s cheaper, too. We’re truly living in an age of miracles.

DSL modem has arrived. Will now attempt to install. Keep your fingers crossed. This will undoubtedly be a bumpy ride. Don’t worry, it won’t keep you from accessing the Whatever; it’ll just keep me from accessing the Whatever.

Sweet Jesus on Pogo Stick, but I do get sick of ignorant people around here. One just popped up in the comment threads for The Election and Kerry’s Shoes and dropped a wide load of ignorance on the proceedings; the item that’s currently exercising my irritation is this little gem:

We are the infedels. The Koran instructs Muslims to bring the world to Islam or kill them. Since we will not convert…they will kill us anyway they can.

Yes, this is exactly what the Koran says in 60:8: “God forbids you not, with regards to those who fight you not for [your] faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them; for God loveth those who are just.”

And let’s get a load of this bloodthirsty passage from the Koran, 29:46: “And dispute ye not with the People of the Book, except with means better (than mere disputation), unless it be with those of them who inflict wrong (and injury): but say, ‘We believe in the revelation which has come down to us and in that which came down to you; Our Allah and your Allah is one; and it is to Him we bow (in Islam).”

Hide the children! Clearly Islam wants us all stone dead.

“The People of the Book,” incidentally, would be Jews and Christians, whom Islam recognizes as part of the same religious tradition and worshiping the same God. Rather than being forced to convert at the point of a sword, Jew and Christians within Dar-al-Islam are doctrinally protected from being forced to convert, and are supposed to be allowed to practice their faiths. Sadly this is often not the case, but I suppose it’s not terribly surprising that people often don’t live up to the ideals of their own faith. God knows it happens enough outside Dar-al-Islam as well.

So basically, that’s that for the idea that the Koran encourages conversion at the point of the sword. If we want to talk about the history of forced conversion, it’d probably be better to talk about Christianity, whose record on that score is somewhat more colorful. But we don’t need to get into that right at the moment.

Here’s what offends me about this little bit of ignorance festering on my comment thread. First, that this fellow is ignorant at all; that he apparently uncritically swallowed this load of crap without inquiring whether it might actually be true. After all, it’s not difficult to check for one’s self: Go to Google, type in “Koran,” and you’ll find quite a few versions of the book online; here’s just one. And here’s a fine wikipedia article on Islam, you know, for extra useful context.

If one’s feeling ambitious to get out of the house, one may even try one’s local library; the tiny library in my little rural town has two English translations of the Koran. The library also has a few books on the history of Islam; heck, it’s even got Islam for Dummies. The information is not difficult to find. But clearly this fellow doesn’t feel he needs to actually discover things out for himself; someone said it, he believes it and that’s that.

I can’t remember at what age it was that I discovered that people are indeed willfully ignorant — that they choose not to know things despite the ease with which knowledge can be acquired — but I know that even at that young age I was agog at the idea. It still astounds me, even more so because there has never been another era in which so much information was so readily available. This ignoramus sits in front of an Internet-connected computer, the single greatest tool for the acquisition of knowledge in the history of the world, and uses it to show off his lack of knowledge rather than to use it to increase his knowledge. He might as well use his computer to squish bugs for all the good it’s doing his brain.

The second offensive thing about this exhibition of ignorance is that this fellow is not content to remain ignorant and silent, which, if one must choose to be ignorant, is the ideal position to maintain. No, clearly he feels it’s his duty to spread his ignorance, thus his appearance on my comment thread. It’s possible he doesn’t know he’s ignorant, but I find that hard to believe: Most people know whether or not they’ve read a book. I’m pretty sure he knew that when he said the Koran said something, he knew he hadn’t actually read it himself. So we’re left with the conclusion that he knew he didn’t know what he was writing about, but that he wasn’t going to let a small detail like that get in his way (there’s the third possibility that he has read the Koran, and his simply bald-faced lying about it, but in my opinion this is the most unlikely scenario). However you slice it, ignorance loves company, and this fellow was clearly trying to increase the ranks of the ignorant.

Well, you know. I don’t want that for my site. I like it when people who have viewpoints that are different than mine come to the site, make their points from an informed position and participate in the give and take that comes out of that with other people in the comment threads. I don’t like it when people with no more knowledge on a subject than any random chicken stroll by, vomit up a gout of nonsense, and try to pass it off as a useful contribution to the discussion. My readership deserves better than to be presented by this kind of crap.

Let me note that if this fellow had said something along the lines of “I’ve heard the Koran tells Muslims to convert or kill Jews and Christians,” I would not be whacking on him like I am. We all have our list of received knowledge which may or may not be true; I like to think I’d be welcoming to anyone who knows he or she might not know something. If I can give them an answer, I’d like to think I’d try; if I couldn’t, I’d like to think I’d point them in the direction of finding more knowledge on the subject. But this guy is purporting to know something he clearly does not, and trying to pass it off as fact. I bring out the mallets for people like that.

Which bring me to the third reason I find this stuff offensive: this fellow is trying to pass his ignorance to me. The implication here is that in his estimation I’m either ignorant or stupid enough to swallow this crap, and I resent that. Is there anything about this site which suggests I am credulous or dim? Do I appear especially open to the vacuous utterances of the woefully ignorant? Is there a blinking neon sign over the top of my head that says “Shovel Crap Here?” I’d like to think the answer in all three cases is no. But please, someone tell me otherwise if I am incorrect.

As I’ve said before and undoubtedly will again, I don’t believe I’m always right, or that I know everything. I’m always excited to meet people who challenge my opinions and positions and make me think of the world in ways I may not have before. I like diversity of thought; I like to think I encourage it here in the comment threads. And I like to think the people who comment here also enjoy the challenge that comes from a diversity of thought.

But the key word here is thought. Coming to my site to spread ignorance insults me. It offends me. It demeans me. It means you think I’m as ignorant as you are. I’m not.